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ALONGTHE 

TRXICSS^ 



ALONG THE TRAIL 





BY 


RICHARD HOVEY 


LAUNCELOT AND GUENEVERE 






A Poem in Dramas 


I. 


The 


Quest of Merlin . . $1.25 
A Masque 


II. 


The 


Marriage of Guenevere 1.50 
A Tragedy 


III. 


The 


Birth of Galahad . . 1.50 
A Romantic Drama 


SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY, BOSTON 



ALONG 
THE TRAIL 

A BOOK OF LYRICS 
BY RICHARD HOVEY 




BOSTON 

SMALL, MAYNARD 

AND COMPANY 

1898 



Copyright, i8q8 
By Small, Maynard and Company 



All right 


reserved 




¥5tjooi 




.A 








i 


1 M H^ Ki 
2 1 ^ s / 



The University Press, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



The thanks of the author and the publishers 
are due to Messrs. Copeland and Day for 
their kind permissiofi to use such extracts 
fro?n Songs from Vagabondia and More 
Songs from Vagabondia as were necessary 
in order to print " Comrades" " Spring" 
and "The Faun " in this volume with their 
complete text. 



TO MY MOTHER 



ALONG THE TRAIL 
A Book of Lyrics 



CONTENTS 



I PAGE 

The Word of the Lord from Havana ... 3 

The Call of the Bugles 5 

Unmanifest Destiny 16 

America 17 

II 

Dead 21 

Forgiven 23 

Love and Change 24 

Launcelot and Gawaine 26 

My Lady's Soul 26 

After Business Hours 27 

The Thought of Her 28 

Love in the Winds 28 

Two and Fate 29 

Faith and Fate 29 

Chansons de Rosemonde 30 

A Wanderer 32 

The Love of a Boy — Yesterday ^3 

The Love of a Boy — To-Day 34 

An Off-shore Villanelle 35 

To Lesbia 36 

Nocturne yj 

The Two Lovers . • 37 

Apparition -^ 

Summer Sadness 39 

"Sprung from the Vase's Bulge and Leap" . 40 

" Balmy with Years, what Silken Ply " . . 41 

Herodias 41 

III 

Comrades 47 

One Leaf More 55 

Spring 56 

Men of Dartmouth 66 

The Old Pine 68 

In Memoriam. (A. H. Q.) 68 

ix 



PAGE 

Dartmouth Ode 69 

A Winter Thought of Dartmouth in Man- 
hattan 75 

Our Liege Lady, Dartmouth 78 

Hanover Winter-Song 79 

IV 

The Faun 83 

Swallow Song 90 

A Health. To E. C. S 91 

The Dramatist. To M. K 92 

Delsarte 92 

World and Poet 92 

The South 93 

A Caprice of Ogarow. To M. P 93 

Thomas William Parsons 94 

Beethoven's Third Symphony 94 

August 95 

A Ballade of Mysteries 96 

The Shadows 97 

Angro-mainyus 98 

Immanence 100 

Transcendence 100 

Visitation 100 

In Excelsis 101 

The Veiled Lady 102 

The Messenger 102 

Henry George 103 

V 

Benzaquen: a Fragment 107 



THE WORD OF THE LORD FROM HAVANA 

Thus spake the Lord : 
Because ye have not heard, 
Because ye have given no heed 
To my people in their need, 

Because the oppressed cried 
From the dust where he died, 
And ye turned your face away 
From his cry in that day, 

Because ye have bought and sold 
That which is above gold, 
Because your brother is slain 
While ye get you drunk with gain, 

(Behold, these are my people, I have brought them to 

birth, 
On whom the mighty have trod, 
The kings of the earth, 
Saith the Lord God !) 

Because ye have fawned and bowed down 
Lest the spoiler frown, 
And the wrongs that the spoiled have borne 
Ye have held in scorn, 

Therefore with rending and flame 
I have marred and smitten you, 
3 



Therefore I have given you to shame, 
That the nations shall spit on you, 

Therefore my Angel of Death 
Hath stretched out his hand on you, 
Therefore I speak in my wrath, 
Laying command on you ; 

(Once have I bared my sword, 

And the kings of the earth gave a cry ; 

Twice have I bared my sword, 

That the kings of the earth should die ; 

Thrice shall I bare my sword, 

And ye shall know my name, that it is I !) 

Ye who held peace less than right 
When a king laid a pitiful tax on you, 
Hold not your hand from the fight 
When Freedom cries under the axe on you ! 

(I who called France to you, call you to Cuba in 

turn! 
Repay — lest I cast you adrift and you perish astern !) 
Ye who made war that your ships 
Should lay to at the beck of no nation, 
Make war now on Murder, that slips 
The leash of her hounds of damnation ! 

Ye who remembered the Alamo, 
Remember the Maine ! 

4 



Ye who unfettered the slave, 
Break a free people's chain ! 

( Written after the destruction of the battleship "Maine, 
17 February, 1898) 



THE CALL OF THE BUGLES 

Bugles ! 

And the Great Nation thrills and leaps to arms ! 

Prompt, unconstrained, immediate, 

Without misgiving and without debate, 

Too calm, too strong for fury or alarms, 

The people blossoms armies and puts forth 

The splendid summer of its noiseless might ; 

For the old sap of fight 

Mounts up in South and North, 

The thrill 

That tingled in our veins at Bunker Hill 

And brought to bloom July of 'Seventy-Six! 

Pine and palmetto mix 

With the sequoia of the giant West 

Their ready banners, and the hosts of war, 

Near and far, 

Sudden as dawn, 

Innumerable as forests, hear the call 

Of the bugles, 

The battle-birds ! 

5 



For not alone the brave, the fortunate, 

Who first of all 

Have put their knapsacks on — 

They are the valiant vanguard of the rest ! — 

Not they alone, but all our millions wait, 

Hand on sword, 

For the word 

That bids them bid the nations know us sons of Fate. 

Bugles ! 

And in my heart a cry, 

— Like a dim echo far and mournfully 

Blown back to answer them from yesterday ! 

A soldier's burial ! 

November hillsides and the falling leaves 

Where the Potomac broadens to the tide — 

The crisp autumnal silence and the gray 

(As of a solemn ritual 

Whose congregation glories as it grieves, 

Widowed but still a bride) — 

The long hills sloping to the wave, 

And the lone bugler standing by the grave ! 

Taps! 

The lonely call over the lonely woodlands — 
Rising like the soaring of wings, 
Like the flight of an eagle — 
Taps! 

They sound forever in my heart. 
6 



From farther still, 

The echoes — still the echoes ! 

The bugles of the dead 

Blowing from spectral ranks an answering cry ! 

The ghostly roll of immaterial drums, 

Beating reveille in the camps of dream, 

As from far meadows comes, 

Over the pathless hill, 

The irremeable stream. 

I hear the tread 

Of the great armies of the Past go by; 

I hear, 

Across the wide sea wash of years between, 

Concord and Valley Forge shout back from the unseen, 

And Vicksburg give a cheer. 

Our cheer goes back to them, the valiant dead ! 
Laurels and roses on their graves to-day, 
Lilies and laurels over them we lay, 
And violets o'er each unforgotten head. 
Their honor still with the returning May 
Puts on its springtime in our memories, 
Nor till the last American with them lies 
Shall the young year forget to strew their bed. 

Peace to their ashes, sleep and honored rest ! 
But we — awake ! 

Ours to remember them with deeds like theirs ! 
7 



From sea to sea the insistent bugle blares, 

The drums will not be still for any sake ; 

And as an eagle rears his crest, 

Defiant, from some tall pine of the north, 

And spreads his wings to fly, 

The banners of America go forth 

Against the clarion sky. 

Veteran and volunteer, 

They who were comrades of that shadow host, 

And the young brood whose veins renew the fires 

That burned in their great sires, 

Alike we hear 

The summons sounding clear 

From coast to coast, — 

The cry of the bugles, 

The battle-birds ! 

As some great hero men have dreamed might be, 

Sigurd or Herakles or Launcelot, 

Too strong to reckon up the gain or pain, 

With equal and indifferent disdain 

Keeping or keeping not 

What he may win, 

Gives to the world his victory 

And to the weak the labors he might spare, 

My knightly country, the world's paladin, 

Throw out its pennon to the air 

To make a people free ! 

8 



Rejoice, O Cuba ! thy worst foe 

Is overthrown. 

The money dragon, 

The Old Serpent, 

Thy jailer's strong defence, laid low, 

Cast down, 

Pierced to the bone, 

Makes off to nurse his wound, 

Dragging his scaly length along the ground. 

Ha, ha ! he is sick, 

He hath no stomach for the battle. 

With dull reptilian malice in his eyes, 

Spoiled of his prey, he lies, 

Blinking his glutton hatred from his lair. 

Plotting new outrage in his den, 

He waits to be strong again. 

— Let him beware ! 

For we, who have smitten him once, 

Shall smite him again ! 

A passing wound for the nonce, 

But a death blow then ! 

Now with a warning stroke, 

That he coil not across our way 

When the wronged cry under the yoke 

And we may not stay ; 

But then in the hour of Doom 

To his irrevocable tomb 

Forever hurled, 

9 



That the world may again have room 
For the sons of the world. 

Rejoice again, O Cuba ! 

Rejoice, Gomez ! 

Rejoice, spirit of Maceo ! 

The voice of the Lord in the drums, 

The cry of Jehovah in the bugles ; 

— Let my people go free ! 

Behold, I will burst their chain ! 

For my Deliverer comes, 

He whom I have chosen to be 

My Messenger on the Sea, 

My Rod for the scourge of Spain ! 

I have endured her too long; 

I have smitten and she has not ceased from wrong, — 

I have forborne 

And she has held me in scorn. 

Now therefore for her misdeeds 

Wherewith Time bleeds, 

I who smote her by the hand of Drake 

And wrenched from her the Sea, — 

I who raised up Bolivar to shake 

Her captive continent free, — 

I will smite her for the third time in my wrath 

And naught shall remain, 

But a black char of memory in man's path, 

Of the power of Spain. 

10 



We have heard the voice of the Lord ; 
Manila knows our answer, and Madrid 
Shall hear it in our cannon at her gate, 
Unless to save some remnant of her fate, 
Ere that assault be bid, 
She yield her conquered sword. 

Let her not put her trust 

In the nations that cry out 

Against us, in them that flout 

The battle of the just. 

They have made themselves drunk with wind ; 

They have uttered a foolish cry 

In the ears of the Lord on high ; 

But they shall not save her with words 

— Nay, nor with swords — 

From the doom of the sin she has sinned. 

For the writ of the Powers does not run 

Where the flag of the Union floats. 

Fair and equal every one 

We greet with loyal throats ; 

But we own no suzerain. 

Thewed with freedom, 

Mailed in destiny — 

We shall maintain 

Against the world our right, 

Their peer in majesty, their peer in might. 



Who now are they whose God is gain ? 

Let Rothschild-ridden Europe hold her peace ! 

Her jest is proved a lie. 

They and not we refrain 

From all things high 

At the money-changers' cry ; 

They and not we have sold 

Their flags for gold ; 

They and not we yield honor to increase. 

Honor to England, that she does us right 

At last, and, after many a valiant fight, 

Forgets her ancient grudge ! 

But ye, O nations, be the Lord our judge 

And yours the shame forever ! How shall ye 

In the unforgetting face of History 

Look without blush hereafter ? Ye who gave 

To the Great Robber all your words of cheer, 

And to the Champion of the Right a sneer — 

What answer will ye have 

When affronted Time demands 

The shame and fame of nations at your hands ? 

Thou too, O France ! 

Thou, the beloved ! — 

Paul Jones and Lafayette in Paradise 

Lift not their sad, ashamed, bewildered eyes, 

But pass in silence with averted glance. 



Twinned with us in the hearts of all the free, 

O fair and dear, what have we done to thee ? 

What have we done to thee, beloved and fair, 

That thou shouldst greet us with an alien stare, 

And take to thy embrace 

Her whose flag never flew but where it left the trace 

Of murder and of rapine on the air ? 

Not only to lay low 
The decrepit foe 

— Proud, cruel, treacherous, but still brave, 
With one foot in the grave — 

But once for all 

To warn the world that, though we do not brawl, 

Our sword is ready to protect 

The weak against the brutal strong, 

Our guns are ready to exact 

Justice of them that do us wrong. 

Ay, we " remember the Maine," 

The mighty ship 

And the men thereon ! 

There is no court for nations that can mete 

The just reward for murder upon Spain ; 

No Arbiter can put the black cap on ; 

No sovereign nation, shorn of sovereignship, 

Be brought, a felon, to the judgment seat 

— Except by war ! 

13 



Cease then this silly prate, 

That to do justice on the evil-doer 

Is vengeful and unworthy of the State. 

Remember the Maine — 

That all the world as well as Spain 

May know that God has given us the sword 

To punish crime and vindicate his word. 

Ye pompous prattlers, cease 

Your idle platitudes of peace 

When there is no peace ! 

Back to your world of books, and leave the world of 

men 
To them that have the habit of the real, 
Nor longer with a mask of fair ideal 
Hide your indifference to the facts of pain ! 

Not against war, 

But against wrong, 

League we in mighty bonds from sea to sea ! 

Peace, when the world is free ! 

Peace, when there is no thong, 

Fetter nor bar ! 

No scourges for men's backs, 

No thumbscrews and no racks — 

For body or soul ! 

No unjust law ! 

No tyrannous control 

Of brawn or maw ! 

14 



But, though the day be far, 
Till then, war ! 

Blow, bugles ! 

Over the rumbling drum and marching feet 

Sound your high, sweet defiance to the air ! 

Great is war — great and fair ! 

The terrors of his face are grand and sweet, 

And to the wise the calm of God is there. 

God clothes himself in darkness as in light, 

— The God of love, but still the God of might. 

Nor love they least 

Who strike with right good will 

To vanquish ill 

And fight God's battle upward from the beast. 

By strife as well as loving — strife, 

The Law of Life, — 

In brute and man the climbing has been done 

And shall be done hereafter. Since man was, 

No upward-climbing cause 

Without the sword has ever yet been won. 

Bugles ! 

The imperious bugles ! 

Still their call 

Soars like an exaltation to the sky. 

They call on men to fall, 

To die, — 

15 



Remembered or forgotten, but a part 

Of the great beating of the Nation's heart ! 

A call to sacrifice ! 

A call to victory ! 

Hark, in the Empyrean 

The battle-birds ! 

The bugles ! 

( Waldron Post, G. A. R. t Nyack, N. Y. % Memorial Day 
1898) 



UNMANIFEST DESTINY 

To what new fates, my country, far 
And unforeseen of foe or friend, 

Beneath what unexpected star, 
Compelled to what unchosen end, 

Across the sea that knows no beach 
The Admiral of Nations guides 

Thy blind obedient keels to reach 
The harbor where thy future rides ! 

The guns that spoke at Lexington 

Knew not that God was planning then 

The trumpet word of Jefferson 
To bugle forth the rights of men. 

To them that wept and cursed Bull Run, 
What was it but despair and shame ? 
16 



Who saw behind the cloud the sun ? 
Who knew that God was in the flame? 

Had not defeat upon defeat, 

Disaster on disaster come, 
The slave's emancipated feet 

Had never marched behind the drum. 

There is a Hand that bends our deeds 
To mightier issues than we planned, 

Each son that triumphs, each that bleeds, 
My country, serves Its dark command. 

I do not know beneath what sky 
Nor on what seas shall be thy fate ; 

I only know it shall be high, 
I only know it shall be great. 

July, 1898 

AMERICA 

We came to birth in battle ; when we pass, 
It shall be to the thunder of the drums. 
We are not one that weeps and saith Alas, 
Nor one that dreams of dim millenniums. 
Our hand is set to this world's business, 
And it must be accomplished workmanly ; 
Be we not stout enough to keep our place, 
What profits it the world that we be free ? 
2 17 



Not with despite for others, but to hold 
Our station in the world inviolate, 
We keep the stomach of the men of old 
Who built in blood the bastions of our fate. 

We know not to what goal God's purpose tends ; 

We know He works through battle to His ends. 

October, 1898 



iS 



II 



i 9 



DEAD 

Ah God ! how strange the rattling in the street 
Comes to me where I lie and the hours pass. 

I watch a beetle crawling up the sheet 

That covers me, and curiously note 

The green and yellow back like mouldy brass, 

And cannot even shudder at the thought 

How soon the loathsome thing will reach my face. 

And by such things alone I measure out 

The slow drip of the minutes from Time's eaves. 

For if I think of when I lived, I doubt 

It was but yesterday I brushed the flowers ; 

But when I think of what I am, thought leaves 

The weak mind dizzy in a waste of hours. 

O God, how happy is the man that grieves ! 

Life ? It was life to look upon her face, 

And it was life to rage when she was gone ; 

But this new horror ! — In the market-place 

A form, in all things like me as I moved 

Of old, is marked or hailed of many an one 

That takes it for his friend that lived and loved, — 
And I laugh voicelessly, a laugh of stone. 

For here I lie and neither move nor feel, 

And watch that Other pacing up and down 
The room, or pausing at his potter's wheel 

21 



To turn out cunning vessels from the clay, 
Vessels that he will hawk about the town, 

And then return to work another day 

Frowning; but I, — I neither smile nor frown. 

I see him take his coat down from the peg 
And put it on, and open the white door, 

And brush some bit of cobweb from his leg, 

And look about the room before he goes ; 

And then the clock goes ticking as before, 

And I am with him and know all he does, 

And I am here and tell each clock-tick o'er. 

And men are praising him for subtle skill ; 

And women love him — God alone knows why ! 
He can have all the world holds at his will — 
But this, to be a living soul, and this 

No man but I can give him ; and I lie 
And make no sign, and care not what he is, 

And hardly know if this indeed be I. 

Ah, if she came and bent above me here, 

Who lie with straight bands bound about my 
chin! 

Ah, if she came and stood beside this bier 

With aureoles as of old upon her hair 

To light the darkness of this burial bin ! 

Should I not rise again and breathe the air 

And feel the veins warm that the blood beats in ? 



Or should I lie with sinews fixed and shriek 

As dead men shriek and make no sound ? Should I 

See her gray eyes look love and hear her speak, 

And be all impotent to burst my shroud ? 

Will the dead never rise from where they lie ? 

Or will they never cease to think so loud ? 
Or is to know and not to be, to die ? 

1890 

FORGIVEN 

" Despise me if you will. I have done you wrong, — 

Most grievous wrong, — but not the wrong you 
think. 
You deemed me strongest where I was not strong, 

And martyr where a scratch would make me shrink. 
Nor, false for truth's sake though I wrest my role, 

Am I one half so false as I am true ; 
And mine own truth has throttled my proud soul 

And cast it prostrate at the feet of you. 
I am most humble ; but my heart cries out 

For one last grace from you before we part ; 
— Though it give pain, to hear my tale throughout 

And — not forgive — but understand my heart. 
Therefore I bare my soul to you and tell 

The utter truth, though speaking so I seem 
But a reiterate anguish to compel, 

That in condemning you may not condemn 
23 



You know not what, but me, me, me ! " — The whole 
I told then, act and impulse ; I kept not 

Aught back that might reveal me to her soul: 
And she forgave, — but understood no jot 

1893 

LOVE AND CHANGE 

One Lover 

Forever ? Ah, too vain to hope, my sweet, 
That love should linger when all else must die ! 
No prayer can stay his wings, if he will fly, 
Nor longing lure him back to find our feet, 

Weeping for old disloyalties. The heat 
That glows in the uplifting of thine eye, 
Dims and grows cold ere yet the day pass by ; 
Nor ever will the dusk of love repeat 

The dawn's pearl-rapture. Ay, it is the doom 
Of love that it must watch its own decay. 
Petal by petal from the voluptuous bloom 

Drops withering, till the last is blown away. 

The night mists rise and shroud the bier of day, 
And we are left lamenting in the gloom. 

Another Lover 
" Love is eternal," sang I long ago 

Of some light love that lasted for a day; 
But when that whim of hearts was puffed away, 
And other loves that following made as though 
24 



They were the very deathless, lost the glow 
Youth mimics the divine with, and grew gray, 
I said, " It is a dream, — no love will stay." 
Angels have taught me wisdom ; now I know, 

Though lesser loves, and greater loves, may cease, 
Love still endures, knocking at myriad gates 
Of beauty, — dawns and call of woodland birds, 

Stars, winds, and waters, lilt of luted words 

And worshipped women, — till it finds its peace 
In the abyss where Godhead loves and waits. 

A Third Lover 

My love for you dies many times a year, 

And a new love is monarch in his place. 

Love must grow weary of the fairest face ; 

The fondest heart must fail to hold him near. 
For love is born of wonder, kin to fear — 

Things grown familiar lose the sweet amaze ; 

Grown to their measure, love must turn his gaze 

To some new splendor, some diviner sphere. 
But in the blue night of your endless soul 

New stars globe ever as the old are scanned ; 

Goal where love will, you reach a farther goal, 
And the new love is ever love of you. 

Love needs a thousand loves, forever new, 

And finds them — in the hollow of your hand. 

1897 

25 



LAUNCELOT AND GAWAINE 

Two women loved a poet. One was dark, 

Luxuriant with the beauty of the south, 

A heart of fire — and this one he forsook. 

The other slender, tall, with wide gray eyes, 

Who loved him with a still intensity 

That made her heart a shrine — to her he clave, 

And he was faithful to her to the end. 

And when the poet died, a song was found 

Which he had writ, of Launcelot and Gawaine ; 

And when the women read it, one cried out : 

" Where got he Launcelot? Gawaine I know — 

He drew that picture from a looking-glass — 

Sleek, lying, treacherous, golden-tongued Gawaine ! " 

The other, smiling, murmured " Launcelot ! " 

1S88 



MY LADY'S SOUL 

Like some enchanted dweller in the deep, 
I swim among the grottoes of your soul. 
Far, far away the cliffs rise rough and steep ; 
Far, far above the ruffling billows roll. 
Here a new world, unseen of any eye 
But mine, unfolds its unfamiliar blooms 
In opal calms unuttered to the sky 
And tremulous light of phosphorescent glooms. 
26 



And if my soul revisit the raw day, 
For joy of all that secret beauty blind, 
I, merman-like, have little care to stay 
In the thin air, but plunge again to find 
Those deeps unvisited from which I came, 
Whose simplest wonders have not yet a name. 
1895 



AFTER BUSINESS HOURS 

When I sit down with thee at last alone, 
Shut out the wrangle of the clashing day, 
The scrape of petty jars that fret and fray, 
The snarl and yelp of brute beasts for a bone ; 

When thou and I sit down at last alone, 

And through the dusk of rooms divinely gray 

Spirit to spirit finds its voiceless way, 

As tone melts meeting in accordant tone, ■— 

Oh, then our souls, far in the vast of sky, 

Look from a tower, too high for sound of strife 
Or any violation of the town, 

Where the great vacant winds of God go by, 
And over the huge misshapen city of life 
Love pours his silence and his moonlight down. 

1898 



27 



THE THOUGHT OF HER 

My love for thee doth take me unaware, 

When most with lesser things my brain is wrought, 
As in some nimble interchange of thought 
The silence enters, and the talkers stare. 

Suddenly I am still and thou art there, 
A viewless visitant and unbesought, 
And all my thinking trembles into nought 
And all my being opens like a prayer. 

Thou art the lifted Chalice in my soul, 

And I a dim church at the thought of thee ; 
Brief be the moment, but the mass is said, 

The benediction like an aureole 

Is on my spirit, and shuddering through me 
A rapture like the rapture of the dead. 



LOVE IN THE WINDS 

When I am standing on a mountain crest, 
Or hold the tiller in the dashing spray, 
My love of you leaps foaming in my breast, 
Shouts with the winds and sweeps to their foray; 
My heart bounds with the horses of the sea, 
And plunges in the wild ride of the night, 
Flaunts in the teeth of tempest the large glee 
That rides out Fate and welcomes gods to fight. 
Ho, love, I laugh aloud for love of you, 
28 



Glad that our love is fellow to rough weather, — 
No fretful orchid hothoused from the dew, 
But hale and hardy as the highland heather, 

Rejoicing in the wind that stings and thrills, 
Comrade of ocean, playmate of the hills. 



TWO AND FATE 

The ship we ride the world in sniffs the storm, 
And throws its head up to the hurricane, 
Quivering like a war-horse when ranks form 
With scream of bugles and the shout of men, 
Neighs to the challenge of the thunderbolt, 
And charges in the squadrons of the surge, 
Sabring its way with fury of revolt 
And lashed with exaltation as a scourge ! 
Who would not rather founder in the fight 
Than not have known the glory of the fray ? 
Ay, to go down in armor and in might, 
With our last breath to dominate dismay, 

To sink amid the mad sea's clashing spears 
And with the cry of bugles in our ears ! 



FAITH AND FATE 

To horse, my dear, and out into the night ! 
Stirrup and saddle and away, away ! 
Into the darkness, into the affright, 



Into the unknown on our trackless way ! 

Past bridge and town missiled with flying feet, 

Into the wilderness our riding thrills ; 

The gallop echoes through the startled street, 

And shrieks like laughter in the demoned hills; 

Things come to meet us with fantastic frown, 

And hurry past with maniac despair; 

Death from the stars looks ominously down — 

Ho, ho, the dauntless riding that we dare ! 

East, to the dawn, or west or south or north ! 

Loose rein upon the neck of Fate — and forth ! 



CHANSONS DE ROSEMONDE 

I 

The dawn is lonely for the sun, 

And chill and drear ; 
The one lone star is pale and wan 

As one in fear. 
But when day strides across the hills, 

The warm blood rushes through 

The bared soft bosom of the blue 
And all the glad east thrills. 

Oh, come, my King ! The hounds of joy 
Are waiting for thy horn 
30 



To chase the doe of heart's desire 
Across the heights of morn. 

Oh, come, my Sun, and let me know 
The rapture of the day ! 

Oh, come, my love ! Oh, come, my love ! 
Thou art so long away ! 



II 



Love, hold me close to thee — 

And kiss me — so — 
Dear ! . . . The green leaves above 

Blur in the blue ; 
The ground reels like a sea ! . . . 

I know, I know 
There is but now for love 

Between us two. 

Death like a wizard holds 

Me with his eye ; 
I cannot strive nor start, 

To break the spell ! . . . 
Night smothers in her folds 

My passing cry ! . . . 
But hold me to thy heart 

And all is well. 

3i 



Ah, what if heaven should be 

A dream like this, 
— Too glad to move, 

Too still to laugh or weep, 
So thou stand over me, 

Bend down and kiss 
My lips once — love — 

And let me fall asleep ! 

1894 



A WANDERER 

(Reminiscence of an old Scotch song) 

East and west and north and south 
I range o'er land and sea; 
And I bear dead kisses on my mouth, 
And dead love wearies me. 

I am caught up as a feather 

That the winds toss to and fro. 

Since we dwell not together, 

What care I where I go ? 

North and south and east and west 
I drift on alien tides ; 
The one place where I may not rest 
Is that where she abides. 

32 



So on through wind and weather! 
Afar o'er land and sea ! 
If we be not together 
What matter where we be ? 

[890 



THE LOVE OF A BOY — YESTERDAY 

No lips nor lutes can let thee know 
The joy that lightens through my woe, — 
But look in thine own heart, and so 
I shall not need to tell thee, love. 

Lady of the winsome smile ! 

Lovesome lady ! Gentle lady ! 

If my heart had any guile, 

Thou wouldst make me truthful, love. 

Though bitter be our luckless lot, 
It were more sad if love were not — 
And all the rest may be forgot, 
But thou wilt not forget me, love — 

Lady of the faithful heart! 

Loving lady ! Loyal lady ! 

Were I noble as thou art, 

No king's sword need knight me, love. 

Were I myself a mighty king 
With thousands at my beckoning, 
3 33 



My power were but a little thing 
To do thee worthy honor, love. 

Lady in whose life I live ! 

Fearless lady ! Peerless lady ! 

If the stars were mine to give 

They should be thy necklace, love. 

1889 



THE LOVE OF A BOY — TO-DAY 

Heigh-ho ! my thoughts are far away ; 

For wine or books I have no care ; 

I like to think upon the way 

She has of looking very fair. 

Oh, work is nought, and play is nought, 
And all the livelong day is nought ; 
There 's nothing much I care to learn 
But what her lovely lips have taught. 

The campus cannot tempt me out, 

The classics cannot keep me in ; 

The only place I care about 

Is where perchance she may have been. 

Oh, work is nought, and play is nought, 
And all the livelong day is nought ; 
There 's nothing much I care to find 
Except the way she would be sought. 
34 



The train across the valley screams, 
And like a hawk sweeps out of sight; 
It bears me to her in my dreams 
By day and night, by day and night. 

Oh, work is nought, and play is nought, 

And all the livelong day is nought ; 

There 's nothing much I care to be, 

If I be only in her thought. 
1897 

AN OFF-SHORE VILLANELLE 

Over the dun depths where the white shark swims, 
Waiting his fated prey with hungry eyes, 
Swiftly the light skiff skims. 

The laughing skipper trims 

Seaward his course. What recks he that it lies 

Over the dun depths where the white shark swims ? 

He shouts for glee in the mad wind's teeth. Fast dims 
The land to a low long cloud-line in the skies. 
Swiftly the light skiff skims, 

Brushing the foaming brims 

Of the wave-beakers as in mirth it flies 

Over the dun depths where the white shark swims. 

What brings the white girl there, about whose limbs 
The wet skirts cling, as storm ward, petrel-wise, 
Swiftly the light skiff skims? 
35 



The strong sea-devils wreak their cruel whims 
In vain. Who heeds the hatred of their cries ? 
Swiftly the light skiff skims 
Over the dun depths where the white shark swims. 

1888 

TO LESBIA 

{From the Latin of Catullus) 

Live we, Lesbia, and love ! 
What though the greybeards disapprove ! 
Let them wag their toothless jaws ! 
Who cares a copper for their saws ? 

Suns may set and suns may rise, 
But when the light of life once dies, 
Night that knows not any dawn 
Brings eternal slumber on. 

Kisses, kisses, I implore — 

A hundred more ! a thousand more ! 

Another thousand — ah, too fleet ! — 

A hundred ! — thousand ! — hundred, sweet ! 

Let the thousands throng and cumber ! 
Crush them, crowd them past all number, 
Lest some enchanter blight our blisses, 
Knowing the number of our kisses. 

1888 

36 



NOCTURNE 

White, white I remember her — 
White from her forehead to her feet. 

The moonlight falling through the pane 
Was not so white, was not so sweet. 

She was a pool of moonlight there 
Between the window and the wall, 

And the slow minutes bathed in her 
And went away beyond recall. 

1898 



THE TWO LOVERS 

The lover of her body said : 

" She is more beautiful than night, — 
But like the kisses of the dead 

Is my despair, and my delight." 

The lover of her soul replied : 

" She is more wonderful than death, — 
But bitter as the aching tide 

Is all the speech of love she saith." 

The lover of her body said : 

" To know one secret of her heart, 

For all the joy that I have had, 
Is past the reach of all my art." 
37 



The lover of her soul replied: 

" The secrets of her heart are mine, — 

Save how she lives, a riven bride, 
Between the dust and the divine." 

The lover of her body sware : 

" Though she should hate me, wit you well, 
Rather than yield one kiss of her 

I give my soul to burn in hell." 

The lover of her soul cried out : 

" Rather than leave her to your greed, 

I would that I were walled about 
With death, — and death were death indeed ! " 

The lover of her body wept, 

And got no good of all his gain, 
Knowing that in her heart she kept 

The penance of the other's pain. 

The lover of her soul went mad, 

But when he did himself to death, 
Despite of all the woe he had, 

He smiled as one who vanquisheth. 



APPARITION 

{From the French of Mallarme) 

The moon grew sad in heaven. In tears the seraphim, 
A-dream with bow in fingers, in the calm of dim 
33 



Mists of unbodied flowers, from dying viols drew 
The glide of white sobs over the corollas blue 
— It was the day thy first kiss hallowed and made dumb. 
My musing that delights to bring me martyrdom, 
Grew wisely drunken with that sad scent of things reft 
That, though without regret or aftertaste, is left, 
Culling a dream, in him whose heart has culled the 

dream. 
So strayed I on, with eyes on the worn walk a-gleam, 
Where in the street and in the evening, out o' the air 
Thou cam'st to me, all laughters, sunlight in thy hair. 
And I believed I saw the fay with hat of gold 
Who o'er spoiled childhood's slumber beautiful, of old 
Passed, letting ever from her loosely closing hands 
White clusters snow of stars, with odors of far lands. 
1895 

SUMMER SADNESS 

{From the French of Mallarme) 

The sunlight on the sands, fair struggler fallen asleep, 
Makes warm a bath of languors in your golden hair, 

And, burning away the angry incense that you weep, 
Mingles a wanton drink of longings in the air. 

Immutable in calm, the white flamboyant day 

Has made you sigh (alas, my kisses full of qualms !) 

" No, we shall never be one mummy, swathed for aye 
Under the ancient desert and the happy palms." 
39 



This incubus of soul we suffer, in the river 

Of your warm hair might plunge and drown without a 

shiver, 
And find that Nothingness that you know nothing of. 
And I would taste those tears of rouge beneath 
your eyes, 
To see if they can give the heart you smote with love 

The insensibility of stones and summer skies. 
1895 

SONNET 
(From the French of Mallarme) 

Sprung from the vase's bulge and leap 

Of fragile glass, the neck in gloom 

Fades out nor decks with any bloom 
The bitter vigil that I keep. 

Oh, I am sure that no lips e'er 

(Nay not her lover's nor my mother's) 
Have drunk the same dream as another's, 

I, — sylph of the cold ceiling there ! 

The virgin chalice of no wine 

But an exhaustless widowhood, — 

It suffers, but is not subdued 
(Oh, kiss naive and saturnine !) 

To breathe forth aught that might disclose 

Within the shadows any rose. 

1895 

40 



SONNET 

{From the French of Mallarme) 

Balmy with years, what silken ply, 
Whereo'er the fancy pines and pales, 
Is worth the tangled native veils 

That in your mirror I descry ? 

Uplifted in the avenue, 

The tattered banners droop and dream ; 

For me your naked tresses stream, 
To drown my eyes in, glad of you. 

No, never will the lips be sure 
Of any taste in aught they take 
Unless your princely lover make, 

Amid that clustered cynosure, 
Die, as a diamond might die, 
The Glories and their smothered cry. 
1895 

HERODIAS 

{From the French of Mallarme} 
HERODIAS 

Ay, for myself, myself I flower forlorn ! 
You amethystine gardens buried deep 
In wise abysses dim and bottomless, 
You understand ; and you, neglected gold, 
41 



Keeping your ancient glory unprofaned 

Under the dark sleep of primeval earth ; 

You, stones wherefrom mine eyes, like limpid gems, 

Borrow their blaze melodious ; and you, 

Metals that give the tresses of my youth 

A deadly splendor in their massive fall ! 

As for thee, woman born in centuries 

Malign for the iniquities that lurk 

In caverns Sibylline, — thou who darest to speak 

Of one for whom, a mortal, shall from the cup 

Of my slipped robes, aroma savage-sweet, 

Rise the white shudder of my nakedness, — 

Foretell that if the warm blue summer sky 

That woman natively unveils before, 

See me in my star-shivering shamefastness, 

I die ! 

The horror of virginity 
Delights me ; I would live, amid the fright 
The touch of mine own hair can make me know, 
To feel, at eve, within my couch withdrawn, 
Inviolate reptile, in the useless flesh 
Cold scintillation of thy pallid light, 
Thou dying, thou consumed with chastity, 
White night of icicles and cruel snow ! 

And thy lone sister, O my sister aye, 

My dream shall rise to thee ; even now so clear, 

42 



So wondrous clear the heart that dreamed it so, 

I seem alone in my lone native land, 

With all about me in idolatry, 

Before a glass whose sleeping calm reflects 

Herodias, with clear look of diamond . . . 

Oh, last charm . . . yes ... I feel it, I am alone. 

Nurse 
You will die, lady ? 

Herodias 

No, good grandam, no. 
Be calm and leave me ; pardon this hard heart. 
First close the shutters, if you will. The sky 
Smiles like a seraph in the pane's profound, 
And I detest the beautiful sky. 

The waves 
Cradle themselves, and, yonder, know you not 
A country where the inauspicious heaven 
Shows Venus' hated aspects, who to-night 
Burns in the leafage ? Thither will I go. 
Light again — call it child's play if you will — 
Those tapers where the wax at the light flame 
Weeps in the idle gold an alien tear, 
And. . . . 

Nurse 
Now? 

Herodias 

Farewell. \_Exit Nurse. 

43 



You lie, O naked flower 
Of my lips ! 

I await a thing unknown ! 
Heedless, perhaps, of the mystery and your cries, 
Though you fling out the supreme murdered sobs 
Of maidenhood that feels amid its dreams 
Its chill gems part at last. 

1894 



44 



Ill 



45 



COMRADES 

(Read at the Sixtieth Annual Convention of the Psi Upsilon 
Fraternity at Dartmouth College, Hanover, N. H., May 18, 1893) 

Again among the hills ! 

The shaggy hills ! 

The clear arousing air comes like a call 

Of bugle notes across the pines, and thrills 

My heart as if a hero had just spoken. 

Again among the hills ! 

The jubilant unbroken 

Long dreaming of the hills ! 

Far off, Ascutney smiles as one at peace; 

And over all 

The golden sunlight pours and fills 

The hollow of the earth, like a God's joy. 

Again among the hills ! 

The tranquil hills 

That took me as a boy 

And filled my spirit with the silences ! 

O indolent, far-reaching hills, that lie 
Secure in your own strength, and take your ease 
Like careless giants 'neath the summer sky — 
What is it to you, O hills, 

That anxious men should take thought for the morrow ? 
What has your might to do with thought or sorrow 
Or cark and cumber of conflicting wills ? 
47 



Lone Pine, that thron'st thyself upon the height, 

Aloof and kingly, overlooking all, 

Yet uncompanioned, with the Day and Night 

For pageant and the winds for festival ! 

I was thy minion once, and now renew 

Mine ancient fealty — 

To that which shaped me still remaining true, 

And through allegiance only growing free. 

So with no foreign nor oblivious heart, 
Dartmouth, I seek once more thy granite seat; 
Nor only of thy hills I feel me part, 
But each encounter of the village street, 
The ball-players on the campus, and their shouting, 
The runners lithe and fleet, 
The noisy groups of idlers, and the songs, 
The laughter and the flouting — 
Spectacled comic unrelated beings 
With book in hand, 

Who 'mid all stir of life, all whirl of rhythms, 
All strivings, lovings, kissings, dreamings, seeings, 
Still live apart in some strange land 
Of aorists and ohms and logarithms — 
All these are mine ; I greet them with a shout. 
Whether they will or no, they greet me too. 
Grave teachers and the students' jocund rout, 
Class-room and tennis court, alike they knew 
My step once, and they cannot shut me out. 
48 



But dearer than the silence of the hills, 

And greater than the wisdom of the years, 

Is, man to man, indifferent of ills, 

Triumphant over fears, 

To meet the world with loyal hearts that need 

No witness of their friendship but the deed. 

Such comrades they, the gallant Musketeers, 

Wrought by the master-workman of Romance, 

Who foiled the crafty Cardinal and saved 

A Queen, for episode, — who braved 

The utmost malice of mischance, 

The utmost enmity of human foes, 

But still rode on across the fields of France, 

Reckless of knocks and blows, 

Careless of sins or woes, 

Incurious of each other's hearts, but sure 

That each for each would vanquish or endure. 

Praise be to you, O hills, that you can breathe 
Into our souls the secret of your power ! 
He is no child of yours, he never knew 
Your spirit — were he born beneath 
Your highest crags — who bears not every hour 
The might, the calm of you 
About him, that sublime 
Unconsciousness of all things great, — 
Built on himself to stand the shocks of Time 
And scarred not shaken by the bolts of Fate. 
4 49 



And praise to thee, my college, that the lore 

Of ages may be pondered at thy feet ! 

That for thy sons each sage and seer of yore 

His runes may still repeat ! 

Praise that thou givest to us understanding 

To wring from the world's heart 

New answers to new doubts — to make the landing 

On shores that have no chart ! 

Praise for the glory of knowing, 

And greater glory of the power to know ! 

Praise for the faith that doubts would overthrow, 

And which through doubts to larger faith is growing ! 

The sons of science are a wrangling throng, 

Yet through their labor what the sons of song 

Have wrought in clay, at last 

In the bronze is cast, 

And wind and rain no more can work it wrong:. 



But more than strength and more than truth 
Oh praise the love of man and man! 
Praise it for pledge of our eternal youth ! 
Praise it for pulse of that great gush that ran 
Through all the worlds, when He 
Who made them clapped his hands for glee, 
And laughed Love down the cycles of the stars. 
Praise all that plants it in the hearts of men, 
All that protects it from the hoof that mars, 
50 



The weed that stifles ; praise the rain 
That rains upon it and the sun that shines, 
Till it stretch skyward with its laden vines ! 

Praise, then, for thee, Psi Upsilon ! 

And never shame if it be said 

Thou carest little for the head, 

All for the heart ; for this is thy desire. 

Not for the social grace thou mayst impart, 

Not for the love of letters or of art, 

Albeit thou lovest them, burns thy sacred fire. 

Not to add one more whip to those that drive 

Men onward in the struggle to survive, 

Not to spur weary brain and tired eyes on 

To toil for prizes, not, Psi Upsilon, 

To be an annex to collegiate chairs 

Or make their lapses good ! 

Make thou no claim of use 

For poor excuse 

Why thou shouldst climb thy holier stairs 

Toward ends by plodders dimly understood. 

No, for the love of comrades only, thou ! 

The college is the head and thou the heart. 

Keep thou thy nobler part, 

And wear the Bacchic ivy on thy brow. 

Comrades, pour the wine to-night, 
For the parti Jig is with dawn. 
5i 



Oh, the clink of cups together, 
With the daylight coining on f 

Greet the morn 

With a double horn, 
When strong men drink together I 

Comrades, gird your swords to-night, 

For the battle is with dawn. 
Oh, the clash of shields together, 
With the triumph coming on / 
Greet the foe 
And lay him low, 
When strong men fight together. 

Comrades, watch the tides to-night. 

For the sailing is with dawn. 
Oh, to face the spray together, 
With the tempest coming on ! 
Greet the Sea 
With a shout of glee, 
When strong men roam together. 

Comrades, give a cheer to-night, 

For the dying is with dawn. 
Oh, to meet the stars together, 
Whh the silence coming on ! 
Greet the end 
As a friend a friend, 
When strong men die together. 
52 



— Hark, afar 
The rising of the wind among the pines, 
The runic wind, full of old legendries ! 
It talks to the ancient trees 
Of sights and signs 

And strange earth-creatures strong to make or mar, — 
Such tales as when the firelight flickered out 
In the old days men heard and had no doubt. 

wind, what is your spell ? 

Borne on your cry, the ages slip away, 
And lo, I too am of that elder day ; 

1 crouch by the logs and hear 
With credent ear 

And simple marvel the far tales men tell. 

There came three women to a youth, and one 
Was brown and old, and like the bark of trees 
Her wrinkled skin was rough to look upon ; 
And one was tall and stately, and her brow 
Broad with large thought and many masteries, 
Yet bent a little as who saith " I trow ; " 
The third was like a breath of morning blown 
Across the hills in May, so blithe, so fair, 
With brave blue eyes, and on her yellow hair 
A glory by the yellow sunlight thrown. 

And the youth's heart flamed as a crackling fire, 
For his eyes were f tell of his heart's desire. 
S3 



And the old crone said to him, " Come, 

For I will give thee Power." 

And the tall dame said to him, " Come, 

I will give thee Wisdom and Craft." 

And the maid of the morning said to him, " Come, 

And I will give thee Love." 

And the youth was still as a burnt-out fire, 
For he knew not which was his heart's desire. 

Then spake the maid again ; 

" Oh, folly of men ! 

What thing is this whereat he starts and muses? 

Not twice the Dames of Birth 

Bring gifts for mirth. 

Choose, if thou wilt ; but he that chooses, loses." 

. . . Night on the hills ! 
And the ancient stars emerge. 
The silence of their mighty distances 
Compels the world to peace. Now sinks the surge 
Of life to a soft stir of mountain rills, 
And over the swarm and urge 
Of eager men sleep falls and darkling ease. 

Night on the hills ! 

Dark mother-Night, draw near ; 

Lay hands on us and whisper words of cheer 

So softly, oh, so softly ! Now may we 

54 



Be each as one that leaves his midnight task 
And throws his casement open ; and the air 
Comes up across the lowlands from the Sea 
And cools his temples, as a maid might ask 
With shy caress what speech would never dare 
And he leans back to her demure desires, 
And as a dream sees far below 
The city with its lights aglow 
And blesses in his heart his brothers there; 
Then toward the eternal stars again aspires. 

1893 



ONE LEAF MORE 

{Read at the Dinner given by the Psi Upsilon Association of 
Washington, Febrttary 7, 1893, to Joseph R. Hawley, on 
the occasion of his re-election to the United States Senate) 

Sir, I would do you honor in some way 
If my poor hand could lay a laurel more 

On brows already thick with martial bay 
And ivy evergreen, the scholar's store, 

And civic oak new-garlanded to-day 

To bind afresh where oft were bound before 

Its fronds forensic and are bound for aye. 

But you need not a poet's voice to tell 
The people who have honored you so long 
55 



Why they should love you whom they know so well. 

Still less does any here require my song 
That he should praise you whom our hearts impel 

To hail with homage, heartfelt, deep, and strong, 
To which my speech is but a tinkling bell. 

Still let me praise you, though more fame accrue 

To me than you by praising. Praise is more 
For him that gives than him to whom 't is due. 

He that receives it has a bounteous store 
And needs it not. Who gives, grows just and true 

By speaking justly. You are as before, 
But we are better that we honor you. 

1893 

SPRING 

{Read at the Sixty-third Annual Convention of the Psi Upsilon 
Fraternity at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich., 
May 7, 1896) 

I said in my heart, " I am sick of four walls and a 

ceiling. 
I have need of the sky. 
I have business with the grass. 

I will up and get me away where the hawk is wheeling, 
Lone and high, 
And the slow clouds go by. 
I will get me away to the waters that glass 
The clouds as they pass, 

56 



To the waters that lie 

Like the heart of a maiden aware of a doom drawing 

nigh 
And dumb for sorcery of impending joy. 
I will get me away to the woods. 
Spring, like a huntsman's boy, 
Halloos along the hillsides and unhoods 
The falcon in my will. 

The dogwood calls me, and the sudden thrill 
That breaks in apple blooms down country roads 
Plucks me by the sleeve and nudges me away. 
The sap is in the boles to-day, 
And in my veins a pulse that yearns and goads." 

When I got to the woods, I found out 
What the Spring was about, 
With her gypsy ways 
And her heart ablaze, 
Coming up from the south 

With the wander-lure of witch songs in her mouth. 
For the sky 

Stirred and grew soft and swimming as a lover's eye 
As she went by ; 
The air 

Made love to all it touched, as if its care 
Were all to spare ; 
The earth 

Prickled with lust of birth; 
57 



The woodland streams 

Babbled the incoherence of the thousand dreams 

Wherewith the warm sun teems. 

And out of the frieze 

Of the chestnut trees 

I heard 

The sky and the fields and the thicket find voice in a 

bird. 
The golden wing — hark ! 
How he drives his song 
Like a golden nail 
Through the hush of the air ! 
I thrill to his cry in the leafage there ; 
I respond to the new life mounting under the bark. 
I shall not be long 
To follow 

With eft and bulrush, bee and bud and swallow, 
On the old trail. 

Spring in the world ! 

And all things are made new ! 

There was never a mote that whirled 

In the nebular morn, 

There was never a brook that purled 

When the hills were born, 

There was never a leaf uncurled — 

Not the first that grew — 

Nor a bee-flight hurled, 

53 



Nor a bird-note skirled, 

Nor a cloud- wisp swirled 

In the depth of the blue, 

More alive and afresh and impromptu, more thought- 
less and certain and free, 

More a-shout with the glee 

Of the Unknown new-burst on the wonder, than here, 
than here, 

In the re-wrought sphere 

Of the new-born year — 

Now, now, 

When the greenlet sings on the red-bud bough 

Where the blossoms are whispering " I and thou," — 

" I and thou," 

And a lass at the turn looks after her lad with a dawn 
on her brow, 

And the world is just made — now ! 



Spring in the heart ! 

With her pinks and pearls and yellows ! 

Spring, fellows, 

And we too feel the little green leaves a-start 

Across the bare-twigged winter of the mart. 

The campus is reborn in us to-day ; 

The old grip stirs our hearts with new-old joy ; 

Again bursts bonds for madcap holiday 

The eternal boy. 

59 



For we have not come here for long debate 
Nor taking counsel for our household order, 
Howe'er we make a feint of serious things, — 
For all the world as in affairs of state 
A word goes out for war along the border 
To further or defeat the loves of kings. 
We put our house to rights from year to year, 
But that is not the call that brings us here ; 
We have come here to be glad. 

Give a rouse, then, in the Maytime 

For a life that knows no fear / 
Turn night-time into daytime 
With the sunlight of good cheer / 
For it 's always fair weather 
When good fellows get together 
With a stein on the table and a good song ringing 
clear. 

When the wind comes tip from Cuba 

And the birds are on the wing, 
And our hearts are patting juba 
To the banjo of the spring, 
Then there J s no wonder whether 
The boys will get together, 
With a stein on the table and a cheer for everything. 

For we We all frank-and-twenty 
When the spring is in the air, 
60 



And we 've faith and hope a-plenty, 
And we *ve life and love to spare j 
And it 's birds of a feather 
When we all get together, 
With a stein on the table and a heart without a care. 

For we know the world is glorious 

And the goal a golden thing, 
And that God is not censorious 

Whe?i his children have their fling' 
A nd life slips its tether 
When the boys get together, 
With a stein on the table in the fellowship of spring. 

A road runs east and a road runs west 

From the table where we sing ; 

And the lure of the one is a roving quest, 

And the lure of the other a lotus dream. 

And the eastward road leads into the West 

Of the lifelong chase of the vanishing gleam ; 

And the westward road leads into the East, 

Where the spirit from striving is released, 

Where the soul like a child in God's arms lies 

And forgets the lure of the butterflies. 

And west is east, if you follow the trail to the end; 

And east is west, if you follow the trail to the end ; 

And the East and the West in the spring of the 

world shall blend 
As a man and a woman that plight 
61 



Their troth in the warm spring night. 

And the spring for the East is the sap in the heart of 

a tree ; 
And the spring for the West is the will in the wings 

of a bird ; 
But the spring for the East and the West alike shall be 
An urge in their bones and an ache in their spirit, a 

word 
That shall knit them in one for Time's foison, once 

they have heard. 

And do I not hear 

The first low stirring of that greater spring 

Thrill in the underworld of the cosmic year? 

The wafture of scant violets presaging 

The roses and the tasselled corn to be ; 

A yearning in the roots of grass and tree ; 

A swallow in the eaves ; 

The hint of coming leaves ; 

The signals of the summer coming up from Arcadie ! 

For surely in the blind deep-buried roots 
Of all men's souls to-day 
A secret quiver shoots. 
An underground compulsion of new birth 
Lays hold upon the dark core of our being, 
And unborn blossoms urge their uncomprehended way 
Toward the outer day. 
Unconscious, dumb, unseeing, 
62 



The darkness in us is aware 

Of something potent burning through the earth, 

Of something vital in the procreant air. 

Is it a spring, indeed ? 
Or do we stir and mutter in our dreams, 
Only to sleep again ? 

What warrant have we that we give not heed 
To the caprices of an idle brain 
That in its slumber deems 
The world of slumber real as it seems ? 
No, — 

Spring *s not to be mistaken. 
When her first far flute notes blow 
Across the snow, 
Bird, beast, and blossom know 
That she is there. 
The very bats awaken 
That hang in clusters in Kentucky caves 
All winter, breathless, motionless, asleep, 
And feel no alteration of the air, 
For all year long those vasty caverns keep, 
Winter and summer, even temperature ; 
And yet when April whistles on the hill, 
Somehow, far in those subterranean naves, 
They know, they hear her, they obey her will, 
And wake and circle through the vaulted aisles 
To find her in the open where she smiles. 
63 



So we are somehow sure, 

By this dumb turmoil in the soul of man, 

Of an impending something. When the stress 

Climbs to fruition, we can only guess 

What many seeded harvest we shall scan ; 

But from one impulse, like a northering sun, 

The innumerable outburst is begun, 

And in that common sunlight all men know 

A common ecstasy 

And feel themselves at one. 

The comradeship of joy and mystery 

Thrills us more vitally as we arouse, 

And we shall find our new day intimate 

Beyond the guess of any long ago. 

Doubting or elate, 

With agony or triumph on our brows, 

We shall not fail to be 

Better comrades than before ; 

For no new sense puts forth in us but we 

Enter our fellows' lives thereby the more. 

And three great spirits with the spirit of man 
Go forth to do his bidding. One is free, 
And one is shackled, and the third, unbound, 
Halts yet a little with a broken chain 
Of antique workmanship, not wholly loosed, 
That dangles and impedes his forthright way. 
Unfettered, swift, hawk-eyed, implacable, 
64 



The wonder-worker, Science, with his wand, 

Subdues an alien world to man's desires. 

And Art with wide imaginative wings 

Stands by, alert for flight, to bear his lord 

Into the strange heart of that alien world 

Till he shall live in it as in himself 

And know its longing as he knows his own. 

Behind a little, where the shadows fall, 

Lingers Religion with deep-brooding eyes, 

Serene, impenetrable, transpicuous 

As the all-clear and all-mysterious sky, 

Biding her time to fuse into one act 

Those other twain, man's right hand and his left. 

For all the bonds shall be broken and rent in sunder, 
And the soul of man go free 
Forth with those three 
Into the lands of wonder ; 
Like some undaunted youth, 
Afield in quest of truth, 
Rejoicing in the road he journeys on 
As much as in the hope of journey done. 
And the road runs east, and the road runs west, 
That his vagrant feet explore ; 
And he knows no haste and he knows no rest, 
And every mile has a stranger zest 
Than the miles he trod before ; 
And his heart leaps high in the nascent year 
5 65 



When he sees the purple buds appear ; 

For he knows, though the great black frost may blight 

The hope of May in a single night, 

That the spring, though it shrink back under the bark, 

But bides its time somewhere in the dark — 

Though it come not now to its blossoming, 

By the thrill in his heart he knows the spring ; 

And the promise it makes perchance too soon, 

It shall keep with its roses yet in June ; 

For the ages fret not over a day, 

And the greater to-morrow is on its way. 

1896 

MEN OF DARTMOUTH 

Men of Dartmouth, give a rouse 

For the college on the hill ! 

For the Lone Pine above her 

And the loyal men who love her, — 

Give a rouse, give a rouse, with a will ! 

For the sons of old Dartmouth, 

The sturdy sons of Dartmouth — 

Though round the girdled earth they roam, 

Her spell on them remains ; 

They have the still North in their hearts, 

The hill-winds in their veins, 

And the granite of New Hampshire 

In their muscles and their brains. 
66 



They were mighty men of old 

That she nurtured at her side, 

Till like Vikings they went forth 

From the lone and silent North, — 

And they strove, and they wrought, and they died. 

But — the sons of old Dartmouth, 

The laurelled sons of Dartmouth — 

The mother keeps them in her heart 

And guards their altar-flame ; 

The still North remembers them, 

The hill-winds know their name, 

And the granite of New Hampshire 

Keeps the record of their fame. 

Men of Dartmouth, set a watch 

Lest the old traditions fail ! 

Stand as brother stands by brother! 

Dare a deed for the old Mother ! 

Greet the world, from the hills, with a hail 

For the sons of old Dartmouth, 

The loyal sons of Dartmouth — 

Around the world they keep for her 

Their old chivalric faith ; 

They have the still North in their souls, 

The hill-winds in their breath ; 

And the granite of New Hampshire 

Is made part of them till death. 

1894 

67 



THE OLD PINE 

{Dartmouth College.) 

It stood upon the hill like some old chief, 
And held communion with the cryptic wind, 
Keeping like some dim, unforgotten grief, 
The memory of tribesmen autumn-skinned, 
Silent and slow as clouds, whose footing passed 
Down the remote trails of oblivion 
Long since into the shadows of the Past. 
Alone, aloof, strong fellow of the sun, 
We chose it for our standard in its prime ; 
Nor, though no longer grimly from its hill 
It fronts the world like Webster, wind nor time 
Have felled its austere ghost. We see it still, 
In alien lands, resurgent and undying, 
Flag of our hearts, from sudden ramparts flying. 

1895 



IN MEMORIAM 

(A. H. Quint) 

Mourn we who honored him but knew him not ; 
Grieve ye who loved him, looking on his face ; 
Be mindful, Dartmouth, of each strenuous trace 
That keeps his loyal record unforgot. 
68 



There is no faithlessness in grief, God wot; 
However high the hope or clear the gaze, 
There must be tears at every burial-place, 
Though through the tears the very sky be shot. 

For death is like the passing of a star 

That melts into the splendor of the dawn. 
Were we beyond this air that blurs our sight 

In the clear ether where the angels are, 

We should behold it still ; but now, withdrawn 
In sunrise, lose it, looking on the light. 

1896 



DARTMOUTH ODE 

I 

Out of the hills came a voice to me, 
Ozit of the pine woods a cry : 

" Thou hast numbered and named us, O man. Hast 
thou known us at all ? 
Thou hast riven our rocks for their secrets, and 
measured our heights 
As a hillock is measured. But are we revealed ? 
Canst thou call 
Ascutney thy fellow? Or is it thou Kearsarge 
invites ? 

69 



What speech have we given thee, measurer — cleaver 
of stones ? 
For we talk to the day-star at dawning, the night- 
winds o' nights, 

And our days are a tongue that thou hearest not, 
digger of bones ! 

" O you who would know us, come out from the roofs 
you have made, 
And plunge in our waters and breathe the sharp joy 
of the air ! 
Let the hot sun beat down on your foreheads, lie 
prone in the shade, 
With your hearts to the roots and the mosses, climb 
till you stare 
From the summit that juts like an island up into the 
sky ! 
Watch the clouds pass by day, and by night let the 
power of Altair 
And Arcturus and Vega be on you to lift you on high ! 

" For our heart is not down on the maps, nor our 
magic in books ; 
But the lover that seeks us shall find us, and keep 
in his heart 
Every rune of our slow-heaving hillsides, the spaces 
and nooks 
Of our woodlands, the sleep of our waters. His 
thoughts shall be part 
70 



Of our thoughts, and his ways shall be with us. His 

spirit shall flee 
From the gluttons of fact. He shall dwell, as the 

hills dwell, apart. 
He only that loves us and lives with us, knows what 

we be." 

I hear you, O woods and hills I 
I hearken, O wi?id of the North J 



II 



Daughter of the woods and hills, Dartmouth, my stern 
Rock-boned and wind-brown sibyl of the snows! 
First in thy praise whom we can never praise 
Enough, I lay my laurel in my turn 
Before thee in thy uplands. No one goes 
Forth from thy granite through the summer days, 
And many a land of apple and of rose. 
Keeping in his heart more faithfully than I 
The love of thy grim hills and northern sky. 

Mother of Webster ! Mother of men ! Being great, 
Be greater ; let the honor of thy past, 
For which we sit in festival, elate, 
Be but the portent of thy larger fate, 
The adumbration of a deed more vast. 
With eyes upon the future, thou and we 
7i 



Shall better celebrate the past we praise, 
And in the pledge of unaccomplished days 
Find a new joy thrill through our pride in thee. 

Ill 

O Dartmouth, nurse of men, I see your games 

To make men strong, your books to make them wise ; 

But there is other sight than that of eyes, 

And other strength than that which strikes and maims. 

What hast thou done to purge the passions pure, 

To wake the myriad instincts that lie sleeping 

Within us unaroused and undivined, 

As forests in a hazel-nut endure ; 

To fashion finelier our joy and weeping, 

Inspire us intuitions swift and sure, 

And give us soul as manifold as mind; 

To make us scholars in the lore of feeling, 

And turn the world to beauty and revealing ? 

O justly proud of thy first strenuous years ! 
Be not content that thou hast nurtured well 
The hardy prowess of thy pioneers. 
Among thy fellows bold, be thou the first, 
Still guarding sacredly the antique well, 
To seek new springs to quench the ages' thirst. 
Take up the axe, O woodman of the soul. 
And break new paths through tangled ignorance ; 
Dare the unknown, till on thy jubilant glance 
72 



The prairies of the spirit shall unroll. 

For thou may est teach us all that thou hast taught, 

Nor slay the earlier instinct of the Faun, 

Whose intimacy with earth and air withdrawn, 

There rests but hearsay knowledge in our thought. 

And thou mayest make us the familiars of 

The woodlands of desire, the crags of fate, 

The lakes of worship and the dells of love, 

Even as the Faun is Nature's intimate. 

For God lacks not his seers, and Art is strong, 

And spirit unto spirit utters speech, 

Nor is there any heaven beyond the reach 

Of them that know the masteries of Song. 

IV 

Oh, the mind and its kingdoms are goodly, and well 
for the brain 
That has craft to discover and cunning to bind to 
its will 
And wisdom to weigh at its worth all the wealth they 
contain. 
But the heart has its empire as well, and he shall 
fare ill 
Who has learned not the way to its meadows. His 
knowledge shall be 
A bitter taste in his heart; he shall spit at his skill ; 
And the days of his life shall be sterile and salt as the 
sea. 

73 



Ay, save the man's love be made greater, even know- 
ledge shall wane, 
And burn to the mere dry shrivelled mummy of 
thought, 
As the sweet grass withers and dies if it get not the 
rain. 
But we — oh, what have we done that the heart 
should be taught ? 
We have given men brawn — without love 't is the 
Brute come again ; 
We have given men brain — without love 't is the 
Fiend. Is there aught 
We have given to greaten the soul, we who dare to 
shape men ? 

Oh, train we the body for beauty, and train we the soul 
Not only as mind but as man, not to know but to be ! 
Give us masters to fashion our hearts ! Let the fool 
be a mole 
And burrow his life out ; the wise man shall be as 
a tree 
That sends down his roots to the mole-world, but 
laughs in the air 
With his flowers, and his branches shall stretch to 
the sun to get free ; 
And the shepherds and husbandmen feed of the fruit 
he shall bear. 

I2$th anniversary of the college, 1894 
74 



A WINTER THOUGHT OF DARTMOUTH 
IN MANHATTAN 

Old Mother! 

Mother off in the hills, by the banks of the beautiful 

river ! 
— River lacquered with pale green luminous ice 
Now, and the shouldered ridges ermined with flushed 

white snow — 
Our thoughts go back to thee, Mother, 
Straggle up the Connecticut, and by Bellows Falls 

and the Junction, 
Find thee at last on thy hills, and embrace thy knees, 

old Mother. 

We d not follow our thoughts upon that journey ; 
We have left thee, as men leave mothers, 
Choosing and wedding their wives and cleaving 
thenceforth to them only. 

Ah, she is stronger than thou, she who now holds us ; 
She that sits by the sea, new-crowned with a five-fold 

tiara ; 
She of the great twin harbors, our lady of rivers and 

islands ; 
Tower-topped Manhattan, 
With feet reeded round with the masts of the five 

great oceans 

75 



Flowering the flags of all nations, flaunting and 

furling, — 
City of ironways, city of ferries, 
Sea-Queen and Earth-Queen ! 

Look, how the line of her roofs coming down from the 

north 
Breaks into surf-leap of granite — jagged sierras — 
Upheaval volcanic, lined sharp on the violet sky 
Where the red moon, lop-sided, past the full, 
Over their ridge swims in the tide of space, 
And the harbor waves laugh softly, silently. 

Look, how the overhead train at the Morningside 

curve 
Loops like a sea-born dragon its sinuous flight, 
Loops in the night in and out, high up in the air, 
Like a serpent of stars with the coil and undulant 

reach of waves. 

From under the Bridge at noon 

See from the yonder shore how the great curves rise 

and converge, 
Like the beams of the universe, like the masonry of 

the sky, 

Like the arches set for the corners of the world, 

The foundation-stone of the orbic spheres and spaces. 
76 



Is she not fair and terrible, O Mother — 

City of Titan thews, deep-breasted, colossal-limbed, 

Splendid with the spoil of nations, myriad-mooded 

Manhattan ? 
Behold, we are hers — she has claimed us ; and who 

has power to withstand her ? 

Nevertheless, old Mother, we do not forget thee. 

Thine is the past ! 

Thine are the old recollections, the love of the boy- 
hood still in us, 

As the sprout still lives in the bough and remembers 
March in the summer. 

Sword and ploughshare and engine forget not the days 

When the crude ore went to the smelting and the 
hammers rang on thy anvils. 

This is a letter we send from ocean-dominioned 

Manhattan, 
Bearing the love of a boy from the heart of a man, 
Bearing the never-evading remembrance of thee and 

the hills and the river, 
Thornton and Wentworth and Reed and the century- 
hollowed stairways of Dartmouth, 
The old rooms where we laughed and strove and sang, 
Where others now — hark, do I hear them ? — 
Sing in the winter night, while Orion rises and glistens. 

For the Dartmouth Dinner, New York, 1898. 
77 



OUR LIEGE LADY, DARTMOUTH 

Up with the green ! Comrades, our Queen 
Over the hill-tops comes to convene 

Liege men all to her muster. 
Easy her chain ! Blithe be her reign, 
Queened in our heart's love, never a stain 

Dimming her 'scutcheon's lustre ! 
Up with the green ! God save our Queen ! 
Throned on the hills of her highland demense, 
Royal and beautiful, wise and serene, 
Our Liege Lady, Dartmouth ! 

Gallant and leal ! Truer than steel ! 
Loyally gather about her and kneel 

Here at her flag's unfurling. 
Welcome her near cheer upon cheer, 
Shout till the hawk far above us may hear, 

Where the clouds in the sky are curling. 
Starry her fame, Heaven-born dame ! 
Cannon and trumpet salute her high name ! 
Hear the ranks ring with the royal acclaim : 
Our Liege Lady, Dartmouth ! 

Laurel and vine, what shall we twine 
Meet for her brow who sits under the pine 

Far from the mad town's jarring? 
Gracious and fair, see in her hair 
78 



Jewels her noblest have brought her to wear, 

Won in the world's stern warring ! 
Stainless her throne ! Royal and lone ! 
Born in the purple the sunsets have thrown 
Over the mountains by God's grace her own, 
Our Liege Lady, Dartmouth ! 



Hail to the Queen ! Look, where the green 
Folds of her banners about her are seen, 

Flash of her knight's cuirasses ! 
True-hearted throng, break into song ! 
Rally her cavaliers, faithful and strong ! 

Shout as her ensign passes : 
Up with the green ! God save our Queen f 
Throned on the hills of her highland demesne, 
Royal and beautiful, wise and serene, 
Our Liege Lady, Dartmouth ! 

1891 

HANOVER WINTER-SONG 

Ho, a song by the fire ! 
(Pass the pipes, fill the bowl !) 
Ho, a song by the fire ! 
— With a skoal ! . . . 

For the wolf wind is whining in the doorways, 
And the snow drifts deep along the road, 
And the ice-gnomes are marching from their Norways, 
79 



And the great white cold walks abroad. 
(Boo-oo-o ! pass the bowl !) 

For here by the fire 

We defy frost and storm. 

Ha, ha ! we are warm 

And we have our hearts' desire; 

For here 's four good fellows 

And the beechwood and the bellows, 

And the cup is at the lip 

In the pledge of fellowship. 
Skoal ! 

For "Dartmouth Songs," 189S. 



80 



IV 



8i 



THE FAUN 

(A Fantasy of the Washington Woodlands.") 

I will go out to grass with that old King, 

For I am weary of clothes and cooks. 

I long to paddle with the throats of brooks, 

To lie down with the clover 

Tickling me all over, 

And watch the boughs above me sway and swing. 

Come, I will pluck off custom's livery, 

Nor longer be a lackey to old Time. 

Time shall serve me, and at my feet shall fling 

The spoil of listless minutes. I shall climb 

The wild trees for my food, and run 

Through dale and upland as a fox runs free, 

Laugh for cool joy and sleep i' the warm sun, — 

And men will call me mad, like that old King. 

For I am woodland-natur'd, and have made 
Dryads my bedfellows, 
And I have played 

With the sleek Naiads in the splash of pools 
And made a mock of gowned and trousered fools. 
And I am half Faun now, and my heart goes 
Out to the forest and the crack of twigs, 
The drip of wet leaves, and the low soft laughter 
Of brooks that chuckle o'er old mossy jests 
And say them over to themselves, the nests 
S3 



Of squirrels, and the holes the chipmunk digs, 

Where through the branches the slant rays 

Dapple with sunlight the leaf-matted ground, 

And th' wind comes with blown vesture rustling after, 

And through the woven lattice of crisp sound 

A bird's song lightens like a maiden's face. 

O wildwood Helen, let them strive and fret, 
Those goggled men with their dissecting knives ! 
Let them in charnel-houses pass their lives 
And seek in death life's secret ! And let 
Those hard-faced worldlings, prematurely old, 
Gnaw their thin lips with vain desire to get 
Portia's fair fame or Lesbia's carcanet, 
Or crown of Caesar or Catullus, 
Apicius' lampreys or Crassus' gold ! 
For these consider many things — but yet 
By land nor sea 

They shall not find the way to Arcadie, 
The old home of the awful heart-dear Mother, 
Whereto child-dreams and long rememberings lull us, 
Far from the cares that overlay and smother 
The memories of old woodland outdoor mirth 
In the dim first life-burst centuries ago, 
The sense of the freedom and nearness of Earth — 
Nay, this they shall not know ; 
For who goes thither 

Leaves all the cark and clutch of his soul behind, 
84 



The doves defiled and the serpents shrined, 
The hates that wax and the hopes that wither; 
Nor does he journey, seeking where it be, 
But wakes and finds himself in Arcadie. 

Hist ! there 's a stir in the brush. 

Was it a face through the leaves? 

Back of the laurels a scurry and rush 

Hillward, then silence, except for the thrush 

That throws one song from the dark of the bush 

And is gone ; and I plunge in the wood, and the swift 

soul cleaves 
Through the swirl and the flow of the leaves, 
As a swimmer stands with his white limbs bare to the 

sun 
For the space that a breath is held, and drops in the 

sea; 
And the undulant woodland folds round me, intimate, 

fluctuant, free, 
Like the clasp and the cling of waters, and the reach 

and the effort is done ; — 
There is only the glory of living, exultant to be. 

Oh, goodly damp smell of the ground ! 
Oh, rough sweet bark of the trees ! 
Oh, clear sharp cracklings of sound ! 
Oh, life that's a-thrill and a-bound 
With the vigor of boyhood and morning and the 
noontide's rapture of ease ! 
85 



Was there ever a weary heart in the world ? 

A lag in the body's urge, or a flag of the spirit's 

wings ? 
Did a man's heart ever break 
For a lost hope's sake ? 
For here there is lilt in the quiet and calm in the 

quiver of things. 
Ay, this old oak, grey-grown and knurled, 
Solemn and sturdy and big, 

Is as young of heart, as alert and elate in his rest, 
As the oriole there that clings to the tip of the twig 
And scolds at the wind that it buffets too rudely his 

nest. 

Hear I hear I hear! 
Listen ! the word 
Of the mocking-bird ! 
Hear! hear! hear ! 
I will make all clear; 
I will let you know 
Where the footfalls go 
That through the thicket and over the hill 
Allure, allure. 
How the bird-voice cleaves 
Through the weft of leaves 
With a leap and a thrill 

Like the flash of the weaver's shuttle, swift and 
sudden and sure 1 

86 



And lo, he is gone — even while I turn 
The wisdom of his runes to learn. 
He knows the mystery of the wood, 
The secret of the solitude ; 
But he will not tell, he will not tell 
— For all he promises so well. 

Oh, what is it breathes in the air ? 
Oh, what is it touches my cheek ? 
There's a sense of a presence that lurks in the 

branches. But where ? 
Is it far, is it far to seek ? 

Brother, lost brother ! 
Thou of mine ancient kin ! 

Thou of the swift will that no ponderings smother ! 
The dumb life in me fumbles out to the shade 
Thou lurkest in. 

In vain — evasive ever through the glade 
Departing footsteps fail ; 

And only where the grasses have been pressed 
Or by snapt twigs I follow a fruitless trail. 
So — give o'er the quest ! 
Sprawl on the roots and moss ! 
Let the lithe garter squirm across my throat ! 
Let the slow clouds and leaves above me float 
Into mine eyeballs and across, — 
Nor think them further ! Lo, the marvel ! now, 
Thou whom my soul desireth, even thou 
87 



Sprawl'st by my side, who fled'st at my pursuit. 
I hear thy fluting ; at my shoulder there 
I see the sharp ears through the tangled hair, 
And birds and bunnies at thy music mute. 

Cool! cool! cool ! 

Cool and sweet 

The feel of the moss at my feet ! 

And sweet and cool 

The touch of the wi?id, of the wind ! 

Cool wind out of the blue, 
At the touch of you 
A little wave crinkles and flows 
All over me down to my toes. 

" Coo-loo ! Coo-loo ! " 

Hear the doves in the tree tops croon I 

" Coo-loo ! Coo-loo ! " 

Love comes soon. 



" June ! June ! " 
The vee?y sings. 
Sings and sings, 
"June I June!" 
A pretty tune ! 



Wi?id with your weight of perfume, 
Bring me the bluebells'' bloorn ! 
88 



Ah, too much charmed I seek thee, and again 

Thou meltest in the shadows. Now the breath 

Of evening comes, and at the word she saith 

I rise and turn back toward the streets of men. 

First up the hill to where the trees are few, 

To pause halfway between the wood and town 

And, strengthened with the Faun's delight, look 

down 
Upon the roofs I am returning to. 

The fervid breath of our flushed Southern May- 
Is sweet upon the city's throat and lips, 
As a lover's whose tired arm slips 
Listlessly over the shoulder of a queen. 
Far away 

The river melts in the unseen. 
Oh, beautiful Girl-City, how she dips 
Her feet in the stream 

With a touch that is half a kiss and half a dream ! 
Her face is very fair, 
With flowers for smiles and sunlight in her hair. 

My westland flower-town, how serene she is ! 

Here on this hill from which I look at her, 

All is still as if a worshipper 

Left at some shrine his offering. 

Soft winds kiss 

My cheek with a slow lingering. 



A luring whisper where the laurels stir 

Wiles my heart back to woodland-ward again. 

But lo, 

Across the sky the sunset couriers run, 

And I remain 

To watch the imperial pageant of the sun 

Mock me, an impotent Cortez here below, 

With splendors of its vaster Mexico. 

O Eldorado of the templed clouds ! 

O golden city of the western sky ! 

Not like the Spaniard would I storm thy gates; 

Not like the babe stretch chubby hands and cry 

To have thee for a toy ; but, far from crowds, 

Like my Faun-brother in the ferny glen, 

Peer from the wood's edge while thy glory waits, 

And in the darkening thickets plunge again. 

1894 

SWALLOW SONG 

{From the Greek) 

Hurrah, the swallow, the swallow is come, 
Bringing the spring from his southern home, 

The beautiful hours, the beautiful year ! 
Hurrah, the swallow is back from his flight, 
With his back of jet and his breast of white, 

The Summer's earliest harbinger ! 
90 



Come, roll out some figs from your cellar, old fellow! 
Bring a beaker of wine that is ruddy and mellow, 

And a wicker crate heaped up with cheese ! 
Be it bread of pulse or bread of wheat, 
The swallow will not disdain to eat. 

Oh, the swallow and spring and the buds and the 
breezes ! 

Will you send us away, or shall we receive 
The best that your larder is able to give? 

We warn you — be generous, for if you say nay, 
Your gate shall be torn from its hinge and destroyed, 
Or your wife, who is sitting within, be decoyed, — 

She is small, we can easily bear her away. 

Bring your gifts to the swallow, but if you bring aught, 
Bring all that you can, bring more than is sought ; 

Open your doors for his welcoming ; 
For we are not grey old men, not we, 
But children who laugh in juvenile glee, 

And sing in life's springtide this song of the spring. 
1883 

A HEALTH. TO E. C. S. 

Here 's your health in Burgundy 

And here 's your health in rye, 
Until our betters drink your health 

In nectar by and bye. 
1897 

91 



THE DRAMATIST. TO M. K. 

Not to reveal one mystery 

That lurks beneath life's. garment-hem — 
Alas, I write of human hearts 

Because I cannot fathom them. 

1898 

DELSARTE 

As at the altar of the unknown God 

Even so we stood before the shrine of Art. 

Ignorant, we worshipped — till the hill was trod 
By the Apostle. Whom but thee, Delsarte ? 

1893 

WORLD AND POET 

" Sing to us, Poet, for our hearts are broken ; 
Sing us a song of happy, happy love, 
Sing of the joy that words leave all unspoken, — 
The lilt and laughter of life, oh sing thereof ! 
Oh, sing of life, for we are sick and dying; 
Oh, sing of joy, for all our joy is dead ; 
Oh, sing of laughter, for we know but sighing ; 
Oh, sing of kissing, for we kill instead ! " 
How should he sing of happy love, I pray, 
Who drank love's cup of anguish long ago ? 
How should he sing of life and joy and day, 
92 



Who whispers Death to end his night of woe ? 
And yet the Poet took his lyre and sang, 
Till all the dales with happy echoes rang. 

1891 

THE SOUTH 

Ah, where the hot wind with sweet odors laden 
Across the roses faintly beats his wings, 
Lifting a lure of subtle murmurings 
Over the still pools that the herons wade in, 

Telling of some far sunset-bowered Aidenn, 
And in an orange-tree an oriole sings, 
Whereunder lies, dreaming of unknown things, 
With orange-blossoms wreathed, a radiant maiden, - 

There is the poet's land, there would I lie 
Under magnolia blooms and take no care, 
And let my eyes grow languid and my mouth 

Glow with the kisses of the amorous air, 
And breathe with every breath the luxury 
Of the hot-cheeked, sweet, heavy-lidded South. 

1880 

A CAPRICE OF OGAROW. TO M. P. 

It is a sweet coquetting. I can see 

Above the fan the rogue eyes' merry leer, 
The fitful feigned retreatings that appear 
To court pursuit, the cheeks that dimple with gle^ 
93 



Like a lake struck by a light wind, feet that flee 

A little way and wait as if for fear 

Light love should yield the chase, — so sweet and 
clear 

The violin speech tells its tale to me. 
O art's rose lady, such themes have their part 

In beryl-wrought rare delicate interludes ; 

But give not unto these thy queenlier art. 
Rather shouldst thou unsphinx the rarer moods 

Of Chopin passioning in a star's red heart, 

Or Schubert sighing in the solitudes. 
1887 

THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS 

The maiden knew the hero was divine, — 
For when she saw him, was she not content ? 
So in the satisfaction of the heart 
We find his praise, nor with too noisy art 
Proclaim the beauty past all ornament 
Of his precise and unsuperfluous line. 
1892 

BEETHOVEN'S THIRD SYMPHONY. 

Passion and pain, the outcry of despair, 
The pang of unattainable desire, 
And youth's delight in pleasures that expire, 
And sweet high dreamings of the good and fair 
94 



Clashing in swift soul-storm, through which no prayer 
Uplifted stays the destined death-stroke dire ! 
Then through a mighty sorrowing as through fire 
The soul burnt pure yearns forth into the air 

Of the dear earth and, with the scent of flowers 
And song of birds refreshed, takes heart again, 
Made cheerier with this drinking of God's wine, 

And turns with healing to the world of men ; 
And high above a sweet strong angel towers 
And Love makes life triumphant and divine. 

1888 



AUGUST 

The white sky and the white sea run 
Their twin pearl-splendors into one, 

Nor can the eye distinguish these, 

Enchanted by the diableries 
The mist-witch conjures in the sun. 
Landward a white birch, like a nun, 

Whispers her leafy rosaries. 

Beyond, where the still woodland is, 
The blue west leadens into dun, 

Close to the dark tops of the trees. 

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95 



A BALLADE OF MYSTERIES 

Doctor, I pray you, do no more wrong 

To the drugged dog there in the horrid room. 

Come, unmuzzle ; disclose how the stars prolong 
Thin lines of light through the infinite gloom, 
And how life sprang in the primal spume. 

Then I '11 tell you how the bells' ding-dong 
Holds sweet talk with the birds i' the broom, 

And the poet's heart is astir with song. 



The thought at the heart of June's perfume, 
Say, how grows the weak babe wise and strong, 

And how is Thought born, and by whom 

May the Fates be lured from the pitiless loom, 
And what is Right and what is Wrong ? 

Then I '11 tell you why the breakers boom, 
And the poet's heart is astir with song. 

Priest, tell me now, ere the even-song, 
How God lay hid in the Virgin's womb, 

Who filleth the depth and the height of the long 
Sky-reaches, and how men's mouths consume 
His flesh that rose from the sacred tomb. 

Then I '11 tell you how the clouds give tongue 
To a message from God of a grand sweet doom, 

And the poet's heart is astir with song. 
96 



Princess, say how the heart makes room 
For love, where the cares of a kingdom throng. 

Then I '11 tell you why the roses bloom 
And the poet's heart is astir with song. 

1887 



THE SHADOWS 

Dumb as the dead, with furtive tread, 

Unseen, unheard, unknown, — 
And never a Gloom that turns his head 

As they stride where I crouch alone ! 

For this is the grisliest horror there 

As the brutal bulks go by ; 
Right on they fare, with a stony stare, 

Nor heed me where I lie. 

Though I strain my eyes as I freeze and cringe 

Till the sockets sizzle dry, 
And the eyeball shrieks like a rusty hinge, 

They will never impinge mine eye. 

I shall see nought but the silver darks 

Of the sky and the dim sea, 
Where horrid silver loops and arcs 

Foam phosphorent at me. 
7 97 



But the cliff, the cliff ! Lo, where thereon 

Their silent shadows file, 
One after one, one after one, 

Mile on remorseless mile. 

Dull red, like embers in a grate, 

Against the sulphur crag, 
They play about the feet of Fate 

Their awful game of tag. 

i§93 

ANGRO-MAINYUS 

I am the Most High God ; 

Worship thou me ! 

Put not up vain prayers to avert my wrath, 

For my wrath shall fall like the thunderbolt 

And thou shalt be cleft asunder as an oak. 

I am Angro-mainyus, the Most High God. 

Cry not unto me for mercy, for I am merciless. 

Sin and Death are my ministers, 

And my ways are ways of torture and the shedding 

of blood. 
I am the Lord thy God. 

I am the Destroyer. 
My sword is as fire in the forest ; 
98 



My feet are inexorable. 

Ask me not to deliver thee from evil. 

I am Evil. 

Ahura-mazda is God too, 

The beneficent one, the savior ! 

He dwelleth in the Sun, 

But I in the terror of tempests. 

There are two thrones, but one God. 

The waves of the sea war mightily, 

But in the deeps there is calm. 

Ahura-mazda and I are one God ; 

There is war between our legions, 

But in us peace. 

Behold, he knoweth my thoughts and I his, 

And there is no discord in us. 

He worketh in light 
And I in darkness ; 
His ways and my ways are asunder. 
But blaspheme not, calling me " Devil," 
Neither saying, 
I am the Most High God, 
And I and Ahura-mazda are one. 
1888 



99 



IMMANENCE 

Enthroned above the world although he sit, 
Still is the world in him and he in it ; 

The selfsame power in yonder sunset glows 
That kindled in the lords of Holy Writ. 

1893 

TRANSCENDENCE 

Though one with all that sense or soul can see, 
Not prisoned in his own creations he, 

His life is more than stars or winds or angels — 
The sun doth not contain him nor the sea. 

1893 

VISITATION 

Was it a dream, or did I see him there, 

That quiet presence in my easy-chair ? 

Surely a sacred hush was in the room, 

And a dim sense of legends made the gloom 

Of unlit tapers and a dying fire 

Rich with the grace of wonderland drawn nigher — 

And there across the table, who but he? 

I cannot think but that he thought of me, 
Far off, in some diviner atmosphere, 
And, thinking so, — if he did not appear 



Indeed, as I half fancied then, and now 

Still sometimes dream, so clear the wide calm brow, 

Shadowed with a sweet seriousness, I see 

Across the table in my reverie — 

Yet, thinking so, his loving thought had power 

To make me feel his presence like a flower 

That sends a heavy odor through the air, 

To make me see him, though he was not there. 

gentle ghost ! I would that I could deem 
That I were worthy of that passing dream. 

1 would that I could think that my poor song 

Had reached thee where thou walkest with the throng 
Of gracious poets in their glory crowned, 
Shakespeare and Burns and Shelley laurel-bound, 
And pleased thee but so much as thou shouldst turn 
And yield one sigh for those who still must mourn 
On this harsh earth, one sigh for him whose line 
Were too much graced in that one thought of thine. 
1891 

IN EXCELSIS 

I saw a man alone upon a height, 

With face toward heaven. I asked what did he 
there. 
" For thirty years I have known the stars; to-night," 

He said, " I see the angels and despair." 
1896 



THE VEILED LADY 

Whoso hath seen her brow displayed, 
Keeps silence of its bloom or blight. 

She passeth through our streets arrayed 
In weeds that screen her from men's sight 
None knoweth if in that veil bedight 

Lurk loathsome hag or lovesome maid. 

Whoso hath seen her brow displayed 
Keeps silence of its bloom or blight. 

Men pass her daily undismayed, 

Yet often in the sleepless night 
Cry " Grace or Gorgon ? " sore afraid ; 

But no word comes from any wight. 
Whoso hath seen her brow displayed, 

Keeps silence of its bloom or blight. 



THE MESSENGER 

{For the Picture by G. F. Watts) 

Strong angel of the peace of God, 
Not wholly undivined thy mien ; 

Along the weary path I trod 

Thou hast been with me though unseen. 
102 



My hopes have been a mad turmoil, 
A clutch and conflict all my life, 

The very craft I loved a toil, 
And love itself a seed of strife. 

But sometimes in a sudden hour 

I have been great with Godlike calm, 

As if thy tranquil world of power 
Flowed in about me like a psalm. 

And peace has fallen on my face, 

And stillness on my struggling breath ; 

And, living, I have known a space 
The hush and mastery of Death. 

Stretch out thy hand upon me, thou 
Who comest as the still night comes! 

I have not flinched at buffets ; now 
Let Strife go by, with all his drums. 

1894 

HENRY GEORGE 

(Died October 29, 1897) 

Oh, be his death a clarion 
To hearten, not dismay ! 
Fight on ! 

We have not lost the day. . . . 
103 



Ay, if the day be lost, what then? 
The cause, the cause endures. 
Be men — 
The triumph yet is yours, 

The triumph every cause has won 
That called men to be free ! 
Fight on, 
Indomitable as he — 

As he, our captain without stain, 

The Bayard of the poor. 

Be men ! 

Flinch no man in this hour. 

Remember him that knew no fear, 
And craved no diadem. 
A cheer ! 

Be that his requiem. 
1897 



104 



io5 



BENZAQUEN : A Fragment 

BOOK I 

Soul of the East! Thou strong still angel whose 
great wings, 
Stretched moveless in the air, outspread from 
Himalay 
To Sinai and the dreaming Nile ! Whose ponderings 

Fill the rich womb of Asia with the sons of day! 
Under the shadow of whose brooding thought the 
earth 
Breeds mysteries and devotions ! Shalt thou not 
alway, 
As in the beginning, bring the lords of life to birth ? 

For we, whom Michael, the fierce spirit of the West, 
Leads to the storm of Heaven with call of drum and 
fife,— 
We are the lords of earth, lords of the endless quest, 

Lords of the violent and immitigable strife, 
Lords of the lightnings, lords of iron, lords of the 
Deed; 
But thine, O East, the lords of life and the springs 
of life, 
Lords of the void spaces of the soul's extreme need. 

Therefore to thee, as when at nightfall o'er the hills 

The shadows creep and overhead the silent stars 

107 



Kindle their furtive fires, and all the deep heaven 
fills 
With soundless splendors ; then the warder Sleep 
unbars 
The gates of dream — even so to thee we come and 
seek 
Peace and the mirrored vision that no tumult 
mars, 
The wisdom only Death and Night and Silence speak. 

Under the cloudlike sweep of those unmoving pinions 
Wherewith the soul of Asia floats and dreams 
unstirred, 
High on the slope of that sheer mount whose peak 
dominions 
The valley of Lake Van, roamed over by the Kurd, 
Ali the poet lay, and fever crunched his bones ; 

And by him moved with gentle step and soothing 
word 
The teacher, Benzaquen, and groaned but stilled his 
groans. 

At last the sick man slept ; and Benzaquen arose 
And walked along the soaring pathway, where 
beneath 
The valley lay o'erpurpled ; and across his brows 
The wind laid its long fingers gently till his teeth 
1 08 



Relaxed their clenching and his heart grew calm. 

He sighed, 
As one that wakes from a deep trance and with his 

breath 
Drinks life in eagerly, and, " Gentle God," he cried, 

« How comely in the morning is thy face ; how fair 
Among the valleys is the coming of thy feet ! 

The air is glad of thee ; yea, as a maid the air 

Trembles and blushes for her lover. Behold, the 
wheat 

Bows down before thee in the sun ; the sesame 

Bends low beneath thy kisses, for thy lips are sweet; 

The peaches and pomegranates stir and worship thee. 

" How loving is the Lord God and how strong withal ! 
The fig-tree putteth forth her fruit in the fair 
weather ; 
The clusters of the vine hang purple on the wall : 
But the north wind awakes and the black frost strides 
hither, 
And the bare boughs stretch gaunt in prayer against 
their doom. 
The hand of the Lord God is upon them and they 
wither ; 
The hand of the Lord God is upon them and they 
bloom. 

109 



" Praise him, ye hills ; praise him, ye beech-trees of 
Sapan ! 
Praise him, sun and air and divine reach of blue ! 
Praise him, ye rivers ; praise him, violet waves of Van ! 
Praise him, clouds and vapors and dear drench of 
the dew ! 
Praise him, ye caverns of Mount Ala, ye fountains 
welling 
In the groves of Baghlar; for his tarrying is with 
you,— 
Here is the garden of the Lord, and this is his dwelling." 

He ceased ; his chin fell on his bosom and he wept, 
For sudden longing smote him for the boy that lay 

Sick in the cavern, his disciple ; and he kept 

Weeping, and willingly he could have turned to pray 

The Divine Father of all to hear and save the youth, 
But would not ; so his heart grew heavier alway. 

But him Sandalphon heard, the angel, and had ruth 

And came to him ; and like a wind he came whose 
touch 
Rustles the leaves in Baghlar. Thereon Benzaquen 
Lifted his eyes and saw him, in apparel such 

As at Baghdad in the schools among the elder men 
The young aspirant wears. " Master," the angel said, 
" Why weepest thou ? " But he, not knowing him, 
again 
Let fall his eyes and spake not, sad, uncomforted. 



The angel spake on : " In the streets of Van men say, 
And in Kharput, that Ali, he who did not fail 

In the hour when all rejected thee, and in the day 
Of exile left thee not, thy comfort, waxeth frail 

With fever and, without God, in three days is dead, 
For even thy knowledge, wise hakim, doth not avail." 

And Benzaquen made answer unto him and said : 

" Is my name heard in Van ? Or in Kharput doth any 
Remember me ? How know they if I come or go ? " 
He paused with nostrils wide for scorn of many and 
many; 
Then sighed again with " Son, all this thou sayest 
is so. 
Why troublest thou me ? " And Sandalphon answered 
sweet : 
" Though I be young, I may speak wisdom ; yea, 
although 
I be not old, my conversation may be meet. 

" Righteous hast thou been from thy youth ; thy voice 
is heard, 
Morning and evening, praising God. Thou hast 
put down 
The atheist in the market-place, and with a word 
Confuted them that doubt ; the young men of the 
town 

in 



Heard thee and scorned the scoffers. Shall God, 
then, despise 
Thy pleading, or if thou implore him, shall he 
frown ? 
Open thy heart to him, beseech him and be wise ! " 

Then Benzaquen rose up and answered, and his 
speech 
Was wrathful : " Knowest thou so much, and know- 
est not this, — 
That therefore was I cast out from among them that 
teach ; 
And therefore was my name writ down with words 
that hiss 
And sear into my soul, Acmrstj therefore, re- 
belling, 
I bide alone and know no more my father's kiss ; 
Therefore the caverns of Mount Ala are my 
dwelling ! 

" Because I would not speak vain words to the All 
Wise, 
Nor blur discretion, babbling. Shall a man aspire 
Before Him who controls the inexorable skies 

To say This tiling is good or That thing I desire ? 
Who then is he takes counsel with the Almighty? 
Who 

112 



Enlargeth knowledge and judgment for the Eternal 
Sire? 
Who thinks to change his will, or mould his works 
anew ? 

" Shall the iron argue with the smith what it would 
be? 
Or shall the wrought iron reason with the iron- 
monger 
To whom it would be sold ? Though all men cry, 
shall He 
Who shifts not, alter ? The old seek safety and 
the younger 
Folly ; but his remorseless laws are not reversed. 

Shall the fruits ripen ere their season if I hunger? 
Or shall the desert give forth water if I thirst ? 

" Consider the stars, how they obey their times and 
seasons ; 
Their rising and their setting has been fixed for aye. 
When the recurring heavens shall fail, there may be 
reasons 
To hope that God shall hearken unto them that 
pray. . . . 
But thou, if thou hast sought me not for disputation 
Or pride of speech but kindly-hearted, make no 
stay, 
But get thee to the city to the habitation 
8 113 



"Of Hafiz the physician; beg of him three grains 

Of that elixir that the great Al-Mamun gave 
When we two knew him at Baghdad. There yet 
remains 
This one chance to redeem the sick man from the 
grave ; 
But save this I know not what hope there be in art." 

Sandalphon answered not; angelic natures crave 
The soul's guest-welcome, — in the inhospitable heart 

They have no power to enter, and they hold their 
peace. 
Even so Sandalphon; and he bowed his comely 
head 
With courtesy celestial, then between the trees 

Departed. Benzaquen looked after as he sped 
Down the steep pathway with so light a step it 
seemed 
More like the swallow's flight along the ground 
than tread 
Of a man walking. But even as he looked he 
dreamed 

Self -else whered and lost sight, and when he looked 
once more 
Nought moving saw he save the cony in the rocks 
And on the air the silent vulture far a-soar. 

And as the shepherd turns at evening with his 
flocks 

114 



Foldward, and with the calm of nightfall in his 
thought 
Feels, as he passes in the fields the restful ox, 
Sweet kinship; so the teacher, strangely peaceful, 
sought 

Again his cave, — and lo ! upon a rock-shelf there 
Lay the elixir. All the place was fraught about 

With odor, and upon the sleeping Ali's hair 
The sun fell like a mystic wine of light poured- out 

In cupfuls. Benzaquen stood motionless and gazed 
Upon the vial with a wild and wondering doubt, 

Silent, uncomprehending, ominous, amazed. 



1S93 



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